69 thoughts on “POV Sunday Podcast; June 18, 2017”

Yeah the podcast is my highlight of the week. Always love them! Thanks for taking the time Reed.

rkb: funny how that woman takes your mind off PITT football isn’t it?

Firstly, It’s one year and a few months too early to judge Narduzzi’s recruiting. I do get confused about the offers versus stars versus whatever anyone wants to use to fulfill their (agenda) NO NOT that…. but argument or to a lesser extent point of view. < again, see what I did there. 🙂

I’ll keep saying it, PITT beat psu and Clemson on the road, how is it that these recruits can’t win 10 games and play for the ACC championship. I really can’t see how anyone has an argument saying they can’t.

This over critiquing of only two years of recruiting is easy to fit into one’s opinion of Narduzzi. Which I also don’t get the hurry to question him. I DO get the criticism of some of his head coaching decisions he has made though. Asking for patience from PITT fans is asking a lot.

Looking through the front window though, PITT appears ready to land many or most of the better WPIAL players this year. Here may be the deal with that. No they are not the same high end class of last year PITT didn’t do as well in. This could be the reason many players move on to bigger football schools. Trust me, a few will be crawling back to PITT is a couple years. (unless their contracts don’t allow for it)

This class is solid though and I expect PITT to be fairly high ranked by recruiting season’s end.

PITT beat psu and Clemson one year too late…

Do not totally agree with Reed’s assessment of bringing on transfer’s as not being recruited. That is splitting hairs imo.

Reed, last year you did a few really great article’s on a couple of players in your “Get to Know the Player” write-ups. I remember the Georgie Aston one was so interesting.

Hope the good Doc, Jim, Eric, PT, Rich, PittCock, (I don’t think he can make it) and I’m having a senior moment trying to remember others that have played along on the round-table discussion can join Reed on Wednesday. I also would love to listen to so many more of you guys. rkb, Upitt, DK. gc, barvo, just to name a few. (sorry I left out names of great commenters) BE THERE!!!

Reed give me a heads up when you will be calling. My schedule is wide open per usual…. I have all the time in the world to straighten you out on this negative Narduzzi recruiting nonsense… Happy Fathers day everyone …. ike

Wait, were the recruits with which Narduzzi beat Clemson his recruits or Chryst’s. If they were Chryst’s recruits then it’s entirely proper to challenge the idea that Pitt can challenge for 10 wins this season. If they were Narduzzi’s recruits then it’s entirely proper to judge his recruiting.

Let’s not overhype the Clemson win. Watson threw two inexplicable picks in the red zone and a third on Pitt’s end of the field. Let’s also not overhype the PSU win. PSU was already in FG position with time on the clock and for some reason chucked it into the end zone on first down while down 3.

it is a whole different process and much easier to get a transfer to come onboard than it is a high-end 4* or 5* recruit who may have 20+ serious big School offers. Put it this way, coming out of HS Clark, Hendrix and Browne wouldn’t have considered Pitt at all.

Clark had a 39 D1 schools recruiting him plus Pitt offer and didn’t take it. By the time the dust settled in his many travels and burning bridges only a handful of D1 schools were willing to take him. Even SYR refused his overtures.

The bottom line is that transfers are looking to get out of negative situations, so they are a lot less picky then when they were HS seniors.

When I discussed his transfer to Pitt with Nate Peterman at Media Day last fall he said he had 3 other schools interested in him when he decided to transfer. Big difference than the 22 schools that wanted him after HS.

Chad Voytik had 13 Power Five offers out of HS and and when he left Pitt two lesser schools offered to take him.

JUCOs usually have just a couple schools after them if that unless they are really, really good.

So there is a huge difference in the approach to recruiting than there is getting transfers onboard.

Now that said – Narduzzi has been very good at getting transfers to come to Pitt, not so great at getting the blue-chipper recruits out of HS so far.

But isn’t getting blue chippers a piece of the whole “trust the process” theory? Pitt hasn’t retained HCs and also hasn’t been winning so you have to build a base before you can put a shiny light on the top of the house?

Hey all, it’s tough to come back after a week on a cruise ship and three days in Bermuda, but I suppose I must. I caught up on all the threads of the past week and was happy to see that the Big O-lineman from Belle Vernon, Blake Z. has committed to Pitt. I am a BVA alum and it’s great to see Pitt establishing a pipeline from BVA, with Dorian Johnson also coming from Belle Vernon Area. Prior to DJ, the last big time prospect from BVA was Julius “Bill” Contz in 1979, also an O lineman who went to JoePa U and had a serviceable NFL career. I remain in the camp that feels that Narduzzi IS slowly improving the quality of the recruits that Pitt is getting.

Sory didn’t mean to be rude PT. Welcome back and it is tough getting back to life’s business after a coll vacation like that

Reed. I have a rebuttal on your last post but I just haven’t been feeling that well lately and I’m just so doggone tired anymore. I’ll post later but my point is semantics between recruiting and convincing….

Get well and some sleep Ike. I was feeling exhausted all the time until several years ago was diagnosed with sleep apnea. Got one of those jet fighter CPAP machines and feel like a ruttin buck. Well as much as a 52 yoa can. Much like Upitt and the little blue pills, which I would not need them for the above POV gal. 🙂 Just kidding UPItt you the man. Did you get those Rockports signed by KS?
It seems that Nard looks first to the better 3 stars, picks up late 4 stars and then mixes in transfers. We shall see if this works in the short term..

@Pitt Recruiting – If you would tell the kids that they are faxing their LOI to her, and she is on the receiving end of the submission, I would expect we would receive 4 and 5 star faxes along with a much different commitment tweet from the player. Just saying!

Me thinks many would be hand delivered!

Welcome back PittPT. Hope the weather was as cooperative as the Pitt verbals were. Perhaps the next one to land is Brain Asamoah OLB from Columbus. He was looking for OSU to offer, but they also just signed a bunch of linebackers in the last two weeks so his chances to stay in his hometown have slimmed immensely. He is fast and I look forward to seeing him play in the Fall if we can bring him into the fold. Another high 3 star. MSU Athletic Department is getting some bad press with a team physician molesting females if my colleagues are correct. I will get more info, but it is rather disturbing if true.

Spent a few minutes with Luke Fickel at UC on Friday. He is finding recruiting to be difficult right now. Hoping the new commit timelines will actually free up some athletes who get graded out after the season and hoping to secure some winners while some current 4 stars who commit to the big programs early and then drop to three stars in the final evaluations may even things up a bit. He says this is why Urb is so against the early signing period. Pitt may find more late jewels as well. We don’t talk about that much here.

Will give the PCast a listen and thanking Reed in advance for his efforts.

Ike, you speak the truth. There is NO REASON that Pitt cannot contend for the ACC Championship.

As anybody who was actually at the game in Death Valley will confirm, the Panther team mindset on that day was one that, “we can do this”! They came right out and punched the Tigers square in the mouth on their 1st drive and never gave up, even when Whitehead’s game changing 100 yard fumble return was reverted to a Clemson TD resulting in a 14 point swing just like that.

Just like Narduzzi’s rousing locker room speech before taking the field against penn state, earlier in the season, an iconic Narduzzi quote was recorded for the Pitt Livewire then, “they don’t respect, they’re goin to find out”!

Yep, they found out. 42-39

Football is a game of emotion and Coach Duzz knows how to harness that emotion to get the most out of his players. But the essential emotion required, that ultimately results in winning games like these is the “dedicated perseverance” required to bust your hump in all of those countless strength sessions plus the motivation to consume the playbook during hours upon hours of film room study, etc.

This team is going into it’s third year of following a leader who understands exactly what it takes to win championships and he is not shy about demanding that from this team every single day. That is what “The Pursuit” is all about.

This will be the first season where the majority of players seeing the field will be Narduzzi recruits, these kids have a great mindset & because if that, this team is going through a metamorphosis. This team is developing a winning attitude. I saw that in person against Clemson.

Big things are in store for this group of Panthers, come September 9th, I expect Narduzzi will have this team ready to take it to penn state once again. Stay tuned.

My recollection is that PN though hired in 12/14 stayed with MS until after its bowl game with Baylor so his recruiting did not really begin until January 2015. I don’t see how the 2015 class is on him.

AS I recall, MSU beat Baylor in Cotton Bowl in Dallas, and the next day HCPN watched Pitt pull a Pitt by blowing the large lead versus Houston in Forth Worth. Within the next 10 days or so, the new staff was assembled so the recruiting really didn’t begin until almost mid-January

Note that two 4-stars Whitehead (local) and Hall (Youngstown) were committed before PN, and PN had no problem in convincing them to stay. And if you look at the list of previous committals that stayed, you will see that that all of them were locals (Pilato, Jackson, M Henderson, Tipton, Paulina). The one gem that the previous staff recruited that wasn’t local was Quadree Henderson out of Delaware.

The only game when they came out slow was against VT. The Miami game was 29-28 late in the 3rd before Miami took over in the 4th … and in the bowl game, the defense held NW to two straight 3 and outs while the offense should have scored 10 points had Aston not tripped over the 3 yard line with no defenders near him.

Northwestern game was lost because of key offensive miscues that kept points off the board for Pitt, then those key injuries to Peterman & Conner spelled defeat in the end. The Miami game was lost simply because we got beat by a better team and we had two key 2nd half turnovers by our offense that sealed the deal. The main cause for the VT loss was the same one that spelled defeat against both OK St. & UNC, a passing first attack that our secondary simply failed to defend properly.

Contrary to popular belief, I see the warts on this team very clearly. The Panthers are a work in progress. The secondary gets better this year but that’s assured just because they were so bad last season. The QB remains a question mark for now but we have an experienced full grown man available in Max Browne to take the reins.

The one thing I’m NOT worried about is this team’s spirit and “want to”. That is a difference maker in the close ones more times than not.

Bowl games a month after the season ends that are not playoff games don’t mean jack. Our OC had one foot out the door already. Pitt had injured players who would have normally played thru the injuries if not for the fear of hurting draft stock. It’s just the way it is now. Bowl games are an exhibition game. The losses to NW and Navy don’t bother me one bit.

With so much turnover on Pitt’s roster it has zero bearing on this season’s pre-season ranking either. I’m so tired of hearing about bowl games. If you’re aren’t in the Final 4, it doesn’t matter.

Aston had a freak slip and knee down at the half yard line. Orndorf dropped an easy TD pass. Conner and Nate the Great went out with minor injuries they probably normally play thru. Against Navy, Pitt protected the D-line by refusing to let them engage at the point of attack to avoid crack back blocks plus, again, lost their OC.

Coming out healthy and getting next season’s young guys extra practice time are the priorities. Pitt’s approached both minor bowl games smartly.

Having said that, Duzz does have to figure our games with extended time off. He hasn’t won a game off of bye or extended break like a bowl game yet. Bye weeks are supposed to help not hurt your team.

Last season’s schedule didn’t help Pitt though. The VT and Miami games were off schedule games. VT was the bye week game but it was Thur night instead of a Sat game. About a 10 day rest. VT was also playing back to back Thur night games so they had a normal routine of 7 days off.

Then, the Miami game was the following Sat so another extended break. These are excuses but I think they’re also valid points. I think they should be noted.

Duzz has to be better prepared in these types of situations though. Figuring out how to keep momentum coming out of bye weeks is essential to taking the next step as a program and one of the few areas I do have concerns over.

Thanks rkb, I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea also, along with what seems like a thousand other problems. I wake up tired, walk around the day tired and go to bed tired. Such is life I guess.

Reed, your recruiting and or convincing just doesn’t hold water. I get the difference between a high school recruit and a transfer but you never stop trying to convince a player. The Clark example supports your description a bit but Peterman came to PITT while following the same coach that recruited him to Tennessee.

Not over-hyping the Clemson win but doesn’t it stand to reason if PITT can beat Clemson on the road they can win anywhere? We all understand that if only a couple things broke PITT’s way last year they could have won a few more games. … and yes I know they could have lost a few more. I get that.

Narduzzi’s recruiting is doing just fine by me. … but I do think PITT is in for a possible rough ride this year if Browne doesn’t work out as well as we hope.

I’m over the bowl game talk too. Some of us just disagree and that’s life on a PITT message board/blog/article/magazine. Just remember that some of those commentators aren’t any more with it than most of us.

I know some hate it but I love the 3rd quarter break chimp out… I know it doesn’t really work but it has team written all over it…

You guys need to be ready Wednesday for the round-table discussion. Turn your camera off if you’re wanted by the law. or better yet, wear a joe-pa fake nose and glasses mask…

BTW, I unhook my camera and mic while I’m not using it. and wwb… so far my bank account is still showing my piddly balance accurately so I think blue-jeans is safe… actually I’m sure of it… ike

Tossing,
Really appreciate your comments!
Do disagree on your personal views about bowl games though. Just because you don’t think they mean anything doesn’t make it so. Certainly you agree that losing that Pinstripe Bowl cost us being ranked at about 15th – to not being ranked at all, which negatively effected our brand, which negatively effected our recruiting, which also negatively effected our fan base wanting to go to a bowl game when all we do is continually lose them, which also negatively effected etc. etc. etc.
Losing a bowl game has a lot of negative consequences, which quite frankly we don’t need right now.

Pittman – not at all. In fact, I think it had zero effect. Maybe on the final season ranking last year but no bearing on this season. Pitt would not be ranked top 15 going into this season, with the amount of players they’re replacing on both sides of the ball, even with a win. It didn’t hurt Pitt’s brand in the least. Stallings’ hurts a team’s brand, not a meaningless bowl game. Recruits don’t care either. They care more about playing in New Years Day games or playoffs. Beating Clemson and PSU had a far greater impact on the brand than cold December game.

More importantly, Pitt cracked the top 25 last season for the first time in years. That’s what Pitt will build on. It’s not my personal view either, it’s a trend. Starting with the BCS, and even more so with the playoffs, bowl games have been marginalized for years. Players and coaches of teams that are consistently eligible do not get excited for them. Last season, you saw players not only sitting out lower tiered bowls but higher tiered ones as well for fear of injury.

It’s the way the sport is going and why some said the BCS and playoff were bad. Those against them said that the bowl games would lose their luster, and it appears they were right.

I think there’s a sentimentality with bowl games that some have a hard time letting go of. They just don’t mean as much anymore.

I’m not saying bowl games are dead. You will get games like USC/PSU, but that was also the Rose Bowl in front of the entire country with two teams that had an argument for the playoff. You’ll get some teams with a chip on their shoulders who want to prove something. You’re also going to get P5 teams that just want to get out of the game healthy and start working towards next season.

The Duzz knew that year three would be the hardest, with Chryst’s players leaving or graduating, and with his own players not yet ready for prime time. He has judiciously sprinkled in some transfers at key positions such as QB where experience matters so that they can sustain things between the old and new. To improve on 8 wins in 2017 will be a major success for the program, with Duzz recruits taking over slowly from the Chryst group from here.

Anon I agree with you thoughts entirely. This is the dip year which could bad with injuries. Next year should be the arrival of a solid program. Like Reed, I wish he would sprinkle in playing time for young players. You can spot in a player or two for several plays without hurting the whole team or game. Once a bedrock is established like Pitt in 76/77 then you use special teams as a way of getting youth on the team, we are not there yet. This problem has been not just PN but for the past several coaches.

Ike – I’m not sure Browne was ‘highly thought of’ fours year after his recruitment to USC – the opposite is more like it with him having just a few transfer destination offers… much like Peterman had. Pitt, Boston College and Fresno State were Browne’s choices.

That isn’t a negative but is what it is – Browne took an opportunity that he could live with to try to get in front of NFL scouts eyes. Good for us he did that as we need him but let’s not have us Pitt fans make him out to be a star player until he shows us he actually is one… which might indeed happen.

I don’t remember Aston ever tripping during the season … or Orndoff dropping a TD pass .. or Peterman throwing an INT near the goal line … or Henderson fumbling twice … and Office only had a few bad snaps. These are veteran players and the coaches can’t be blamed for playing thm.

When you consider the top 3 plays listed above — there are 3 TDs right there

Pitt was an 8-5 team for many reasons last year, but two of those wins were huge wins, one against the B1G Conference Champs and the other over the National Champions, in their house, no less.

UPitt, you call emphasizing those big time wins as cherry picking? This is a Pitt fan blog right???? Rather, I’d deem your prerogative of focusing only on those loses instead as just your typical routine of attempting to come off as kind of a Dick on this Pitt fan site.

C’mon now. I think Narduzzi thought highly of Browne………… no? A few other teams as well. Transfer QB’s are not for every team every year. Most are grooming their own players and don’t want to mess with chemistry..

Browne is very well thought of. He was voted team captain by his peers and won the starting QB gig at USC in camp. He lost his job to, potentially, the #1 pick in the draft next year and his first start ever was against statistically one of the best defenses ever (Alabama). It’s a simple case of bad timing. Sat behind Kessler and then ran into the steamroller Darnold after facing a tough couple of first starts.

Reed – you forgot Florida, Cal and Wisconsin who all reached out to him.

BTW, an interesting note about Browne was that USC gave him an unconditional release meaning he could have gone to even a Pac 12 school without penalty. Hmm. Big time program. Elite recruit. No restrictions. No drama. No negative press. No Bilas. So easy.

Per Clay Helton:

Trojans coach Clay Helton said Tuesday that Browne can speak to any FBS program, including other schools in the Pac-12. Browne would be immediately eligible to play next season as a graduate transfer from USC (5-3, 4-2 Pac-12).

”He has graduated from this university and has done everything right, so he deserves the opportunity to find his perfect fit, whether that is here or someplace else,” said Helton, who took the starting job away from Browne after three games this season. ”The biggest thing is just to get the word out.”

That is what separates winners from the losers. It is say to get up for the big games but the trap games are stumbling blocks for coaches and teams that are not focused on the prize. Losing is unacceptable to championship teams.

And the coaches are to blame when their team comes out unmotivated to win.

I think Browne will do great this year, he has an experienced WR core to throw to, Henderson and Ollison (a former WR himself) , and a 5 star TE. Since being a former 5 star himself, did he injure his throwing arm or forget how to throw the ball? I think not. A bigger question mark will be if the O-line can give him time to make the throws.

As I mentioned before, Browne’s instincts will be there once the rust comes off. With over 13,000 yards in high school, the basic skills should be well ingrained. Remember my prediction: 2900 yards, 25 TDs, 10 interceptions. This is good enough to score a lot of points and win a lot of games, especially if the running backs do well as a group. By the way, what do we know of this new PG recruit by Stallings?

Anonymous you are going to have to show me where Max Browne had offers from those schools. I looked at this for about 30 minutes yesterday before I wrote that comment and all I could find was his two offers from Boston College and Fresno State in addition to his Pitt offer.

Hey Reed – Anonymous was me. I had cleared my cache/cookies and it took out my Alias. Maybe I misunderstood you. Those weren’t offers but schools that reached out to him. I also had to search for a while to find info. Everything was mostly that he committed to Pitt. I didn’t even see that BC and Fresno had actually physically offered.

All three schools reached out when it was first announced. In total, Browne said he had about 25 schools, 1/6 of all NCAA schools, call. FL and Wisc were looking at several different grad transfers. I don’t know Cal’s situation. It sounded like Browne had every intention of making a decision quickly and took the first offer from the best school with the least competition at QB … thus, Pitt. At FL and Wisc, he would have had a tougher camp competition.

This to me is exactly what I was talking about concerning the differences or not about transfers and recruiting. I’m not even sure Browne is taking up a scholarship? (he could be) I believe in this case reaching out and an offer are almost the same thing imo.

Where did Zaire ever end up at? This might have also been a factor in Browne’s hurried decision with Malik considering PITT.

That is as my understanding about Browne as well. Even though he still had eligibility to play at USC, Browne fully recognized that he had been leap frogged by Sam Darnold and didn’t want to squander his remaining year sitting on the bench.
The guy is not stupid. He was looking for the slam dunk opportunity to play at a D1 program that was good enough so as to highlight his skill set for the best shot at the NFL for him.
He picked Pitt more than Pitt picked him IMO. And Browne mad that decision quickly because Pitt’s situation was right for him. Max would have received a whole lot more serious attention if such a quick decision had not been mad by him to transfer to the Panthers in time to participate in Spring drills.

Reed’s apparent discounting of this guy’s resume from HS on into college follows along the same lines of every other transfer that I can recall for Pitt. Savage, Peterman, Hendrix, Clark and I have to assume that Carter also will also have had to endure the Reed gauntlet of doubt. Speculation on the future is always clouded in his mind with the premise of “previous results are not an accurate indicator of future performance” with these transfer guys.

I get it. The “show me” attitude prevails with Reed but it becomes a bore when it is always so consistently employed. The case in point with Brown being that his skill set is now suspect simply because he lost his starting QB spot to a phenom up & comer.

Max Browne will prove out to be more than adequate for the Panthers at QB this season. His presence will also permit both DiNucci & MacVittie the opportunity to continue to mature into their QB positions without being “tested by fire” as our only other alternatives at such a critical position if Browne wasn’t currently on the roster.

Dr. a nice comment, however even after he entered So Cal early for their Spring drills prior to his freshman season he never did take the filed until last season as a red shirt Jr. So in spite of his almost unanimous vote as the best QB coming into the 2013 class he didn’t exactly jump off the charts as a can’t miss QB for So Cal. And since the So Cal head coach had no problem if he wanted to transfer to another pac 10 school, just might indicate that he had no problem with So Cal having to play opposite him this coming season. Was the coach just being a nice guy in giving Browne that option?

I don’t think Max Browne is going to carry the team on his back to victory, I just think that he’ll be our best option come September and will be a good QB for us, just like Savage was a couple seasons ago.

And I was surprised that his USC coach gave him him a blessing to transfer anywhere in the PAC12.

Tossing, I had the same problem with the Internet yesterday, and removed the cache and cookies, which took out the blog handle. I heard there were Internet issues in cyberspace yesterday, my browser wouldn’t work properly. By the way, Reed, who is the hot Blast From the Past you have teased us with the past few days? Can you make her a permanent fixture on the site? The bloggers will pour in!

Tom, I wrote about Savage being a great pickup for us based on what he did as a starter at RU when he fist arrived at Pitt

I sang Peterman’s praises when he transferred in because the Pitt people I talked to about him were excited he was on roster.

I have said I think Carter will be a good starter in the interior DL for us as with Hendrix over at DE.

Browne not so much. He was a bust as a 5* recruit at USC and comes to Pitt with a average at best resume’. So I feel my not getting all that excited about him – until he actually produces for us – is justified.